Way cleared for St. Pat’s demolition

Halifax Regional Council has cleared the way to demolish St. Patrick's High School. (FILE)

Halifax regional council has declared the old St. Patrick’s High School surplus, clearing the way for the demolition of the 1950s building and sale of the property.

Tearing down the 265,000-square-foot Quinpool Road school is expected to cost $3.5 million, far less than the estimated $9.5 million it would have cost to upgrade the building.

Coun. Jennifer Watts (Halifax Peninsula North) said the high school, which later became the Quinpool Education Centre, was a “very prominent resource in the community for many years.”

“It has had a very full life as a school and resource centre within the community,” Watts told regional council Tuesday.

“It’s a very important peninsula landmark, a place where many students, staff and people went through that institution and had a very important contribution to the city.”

But the Quinpool Road property is in a state of disrepair and is an ideal site for redevelopment, Watts said.

“It certainly is a prime location in the urban core and an area that is already seeing a lot of new development,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for the municipality to find that balance of doing a really exciting development … to actually look at really defining what it is that as a community we feel is important and that will come out during the planning process we will be initiating.”

However, Watts said she had two concerns with the demolition of the property — the loss of a gymnasium and an auditorium on the peninsula.

But in both cases she said the cost of renovating and maintaining the old St. Pat’s amenities came at too high a price.

“At this point, I don’t think we should hold on to this gym that is in a very sad state of repair,” she said, adding that a new facility should be in the cards.

Meanwhile, she said the auditorium “holds a particular place in the hearts of many people” and is known for its “wonderful acoustics.”

But as with the gym, the repair and maintenance bill for the space wouldn’t be feasible.

“I appreciate very much the heartfelt need or desire to maintain that auditorium,” she said. “But I really do not think given the development opportunity, the cost of maintaining it, the current condition, that it’s something I personally can support.”

However, Watts said she is “supportive of arts funding” for another location.

Coun. Linda Mosher (Halifax West Armdale), the councillor representative for the Quinpool Road business association, said the group would like to see a new mixed-use development on the property.

“The ideal development for this site would include all the benefits of a mixed-used project,” she told council. “It would balance public interest and landscaped green space, with an opportunity to engage pedestrians at street level, open-space activities, ground- and second-floor commercial, and then multiple residential living with landscaped roof decks.”

In 2007, St. Patrick’s High merged with Queen Elizabeth High and moved to the newly constructed Citadel High School.

St. Pat’s was then renamed the Quinpool Education Centre, where adult learning, recreation and other activities took place.

In 2012, the Halifax regional school board announced the building was no longer needed. Halifax Regional Municipality took possession of the property, assessed at $6.76 million, in December 2013.

But just keeping the lights on and the building in working order has cost Halifax more than $400,000 a year.